The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Union government have finally agreed to the new format of IIT entrance examination as suggested by the Joint Admission Board (JAB). The new format of exams will be implemented from 2013.

Under the new format of entrance exams for IIT adopted on June 27, aspirants will first have to appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main . Only the top 1,50,000 students of JEE will then be eligible to take the JEE-Advanced exam. The top-ranked candidates who clear this exam will finally be eligible for around 9,000 seats at the IITs. However, the final selection of candidates will be based on the JEE-Advanced scores, subject to condition that they are in the top 20 percentile in their board exams as well.

So, even though class XII board marks won't be added to the JEE-Advanced marks, it would be an eligibility criterion. As of now, students scoring 60% in their board exams are eligible to apply to the IITs.

According to RK Shevgaonkar, director, IIT-Delhi , the aim of the new format is to make students perform well in their board exams without neglecting it and not get influenced by the coaching classes offering tutorials for IIT-JEE .

However, according to Sanjay Kumar from IIT-JEE coaching institute in Noida , the new format will only add more pressure on students. He says, "The whole idea of one nation, one exam has actually resulted in three separate exams for students. This means double pressure to first perform well in the board exams and then perform brilliantly again in two JEE exams."

Kunal Purohit, an IIT aspirant, feels any student who is aiming for a seat in the top institute of the country needs to be intelligent. And any intelligent student won't have to struggle to be in the top 20 percentile. "As far as the preparation of JEE is concerned, it will be similar to how students prepared for it earlier . The party who will be losing out, will be the coaching institutes that charge heavily for IIT coaching," he says.

Vineet Joshi, chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on the new format of IIT entrance examination

Students who aspire for a seat in IIT and prepare for it in advance generally perform well in their board exams. However, there are many students who aim for IIT and neglect their studies . These students don't perform well in board exams and find it hard to even clear the IIT entrance exams. The new format will make such students pay attention to their classroom study, which will eventually help them understand concepts in details. These students will also be able to get a seat in other professional colleges with the help of a good score in board exams Earlier, because board scores were not given any weighting, students paid little attention to classes and this led teachers to lose interest. The new move will help school teachers gain their respect back and help them upgrade themselves regularly Although it's too early to comment whether the coaching institutes will shut down or not, the move will certainly have an impact

Source: TOI

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Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, has emerged as the most sought-after campus among the top 100 students who have qualified for the IITs this year. The Computer Science and Engineering programme is the most preferred course.

Of the top-100-rankers, as many as 86 have preferred IIT Bombay, followed by IIT Delhi, which has attracted only 12 applications for admission while the remaining two, among the top rank-holders, preferred IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras.

As many as 17,465 candidates were shortlisted for counselling this year, of whom 15,989 registered, said the IIT Delhi JEE office, which is holding the counselling this year. In the first round, 9,500 candidates, including 11 foreign nationals, were given seats, it said.

No seats from Other Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes have been left unfilled.

According to a statement issued by the JEE officials, 668 candidates got the course and the institute of their first choice, 390 got their second choice and 379 their third choice. Computer Science and Engineering continued to remain the first choice among students, with 4,406 candidates opting for it in IIT Bombay and 1,082 in IIT Delhi.

The courses that were among the favourites were Electrical Engineering, with 1,016 takers in IIT Bombay; Mechanical Engineering with 874 candidates; and Aerospace Engineering with 539, in the same campus.

A total of 907 (9.55 per cent) women candidates got the admission offer: General Category (447), OBC category (222), SC category (154) and ST category (84). The number of Qualified Physically Disabled (PD) candidates counselled for reserved seats are 127 (GC GE-PD: 79, OBC-PD: 42 and SC-PD: 6).

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The meritorious students of IIT-Kanpur, who bagged varied awards throughout the forty fourth convocation ceremony of the institute on Saturday, raised objections over the proposed changes within the pattern of the joint entrance check for IITs from 2013.

The students said that they are doing not wish the HRD ministry to interfere into the method of JEE. it's a foolproof system to envision the calibre of a student.

Source: TOI

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From 2013, aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit under new a format of entrance test which will also take plus two board results into consideration.

The announcement was made today by HRD minister Kapil Sibal after chairing a meeting of the joint councils of IITs, NITs and IIITs.

Emphasising that there was no "dissent" among the councils about the move, he acknowledged there "was a lot of resistance during the consultation process from the IIT system". IIT senates especially the faculty federation had been opposing the new format.

But Sibal said the selection of the candidates for the IITs and other central institutes would be different even as all the aspirants will have to go through all the steps under new format. This system will replace the IIT-JEE and AIEEE.

Students will sit for a main test and an advance test conducted on the same day.

For admission to all the centrally funded institutes, there would be 40 percentage weightage for performance in class XII (after normalisation of marks), 30 per cent weightage to performance in main and 30 per cent in the advanced test.

In case of IITs, there would be a filtering process involved. The board results and the main test will be given 50 per cent weightage each. Only the top 50,000 students will be selected for the advance test after taking into account their performance in the board results and the main result.

"The merit only in advanced examination will be considered for admission" to the IITs, Sibal said.

At the same time, he added, the IIT council has agreed to move to the other system by 2015.

Explaining the selection of candidates under the new format for the IITs, one of the IIT directors said results of advance test of only those students who have crossed the "barrier" of the 50 per cent weightage to board marks and mains will be counted while preparing the merit list.

Even as the process of selection to the IITs would be different then other institutes, he said the counselling to IITs and other institutes will be done jointly and allotment of seats will be done together.

"I as a student will get a rank in IIT and also get a rank for NIT and IIIT. I will give my choice in both and depending on which is my first choice in either, I will get a seat," he explained.

While the main test shall be multiple type paper, he nature and modalities of the advanced shall be determined by the joint admission board (JAB) of the IITs.

Sibal made it clear that JAB of the IIT system would have complete control on matters such as paper setting, evaluation and preparation of merit list over the advanced test while CBSE will provide administrative support for conduct of the examination.

For conduct of the main examination, an expanded joint admission board will be constituted including the NIT, other centrally funded institutes and state government representatives.

Noting that state boards would have the flexibility to adopt the new format the determine their own relative weightages, the minister said Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana have evinced interest adopting the new format.

Source: TOI

Ahead of the crucial joint council meeting of IITs and NITs tomorrow on the new format of entrance test, Super-30 founder Anand Kumar, well known for getting over 300 students from marginalised sections into the IITs, has suggested making the test more "transparent" and conducting it twice a year.

In a letter to HRD minister Kapil Sibal, Anand, from whose coaching institute 27 out of 30 students cracked the IIT-JEE this year, has also suggested that students from rural areas be given three chances instead of two at present to qualify for the examination.

He said the proposed format for entrance test would lead to over-dependence on coaching as students would have to take coaching for doing well in aptitude test, for subject test as well as for doing well in class XII, whose marks will also be taken into account for preparing the merit list.

Citing CBSE class X results this year where students scored high grades, he said such high marks are never given in the state board exams and that can put lakhs of students from state boards at a disadvantage in weightage to class XII marks.

According to Anand, to reduce dependency on private coaching institutes, the proposed single entrance test papers be set jointly by team of professors of CBSE and IIT, so as to provide a level-playing field to all students, including those from the state boards.

He also urged Sibal to announce the timings, structure and the format of the proposed single test at the earliest so that the students could start preparations accordingly.

He also suggested that all papers under the new format should be based on 'multiple choice questions'.

Source: TOI

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